that it will, in its negotiations with foreign governments, at all assent to exceptions and reservations, verbal or written, predicated upon the existing state of things in that country. It will, I apprehend, exact no more and be content with no less than it would have been entitled to had the convention been executed in advance of its present internal controversy. If, therefore, the government of France shall consider that an unconditional execution of that convention will demand of it interference in our affairs, or will implicate it in any shape in the civil war now raging in our country, then it is obvious this is not a proper time for her or for us to enter into such agreements. But these suggestions are made, of course, subject to correction from the government at Washington. To it I shall at once refer the communication of your excellency, together with a copy of the declaration which you have done me the honor to submit upon the part of the French government. I avail myself of the opportunity to renew to your excellency assurances of the high consideration with which I have the honor to be, sir, your very humble and obedient servant, Monsieur THOUVENEL, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. No. 53.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 5, 1861. SIR: Your despatch of August 19, No. 31, has been received. Before this shall reach you, my instruction, No. 41, will have come to your hands. In that paper you were informed that you would be expected to rest in your negotiation concerning maritime rights until after we should have received some explanations from Lord Russell on a point raised in the negotiation at London. Those explanations have not yet been received here. I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, WILLIAM L. DAYTON, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Dayton to Mr. Seward. PARIS, September 7, 1861. No. 44.] Your action, indicated in 41 and 42, has been anticipated by me. In a letter from Mr. Adams, dated London, August 1, 1861, he encloses me a copy of Lord John Russell's note of July 31, 1861, and in reference to the vague paragraph to which your despatches refer he says: "I do not quite comprehend the drift of the last paragraph, but I presume you will find it out in the progress of your negotiation." This I immediately answered by a letter, of which I herewith send you a copy. Their subsequent offer to make a written outside declaration cotemporaneous with the execution of the treaty was a degree of frankness which I did not anticipate, and for which I had not given them credit. I shall wait with great pleasure, according to your instructions," the result of the explanations which Mr. Adams is instructed to ask," but I expect that both he and I have already received all necessary explanations on that point. My conversations, at least with Mr. Thouvenel, have covered the whole ground, as stated to you in despatch No. 35. I add that I communicated immediately to Mr. Adams the substance of that conversation with Mr. Thouvenel. The exequatur of James Lesley, appointed consul of the United States to Lyons, was applied for immediately on the receipt of his commission. With much respect, I have the honor to be, your obedient servant, WILLIAM L. DAYTON. His Excellency WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, &c. PARIS, August 5, 1861. SIR: I acknowledge with pleasure the receipt of yours of the 1st instant, enclosing a copy of your note to Lord John Russel and his reply. I feel that we have done a good thing in getting the reply of the British government (declaring the amendment to the treaty of Paris inadmissible) in writ ing. At least, we can proceed now, under our instructions, with a consciousness that we not only have not neglected this point, but that we have the evidence of having pressed it affirmatively. You say you do not comprehend the drift of the last paragraph in Lord John's reply. I think I do, at least, in part, and I shall not be surprised if the meaning, which he has purposely wrapped up in that general language, should in the end break off all negotiation. He may not refer to this language again, but unless you ask its meaning before the treaty is negotiated, it will be used by them afterwards as an excuse for not carrying it in effect as respects the insurrectionists of the south. The paragraph states, "the engagement of Great Britain will be prospective, and will not invalidate anything already done." The comment after the treaty, predicated upon this language, will be: "We had declared before the treaty that the southern insurrectionists were a belligerent party, and entitled to belligerent rights, (among which is the right to issue letters of marque,) and the treaty was to be prospective only, and not to invalidate anything already done. That, in other words, it does not bind your disloyal citizens, recognized by us as a belligerent party." I long ago wrote Mr. Seward that these powers would, in my judgment, either refuse to negotiate, or, if they did negotiate, it would be with the understanding that it secured us no rights not already conceded, and charged them with no duties not heretofore acknowledged, It is advisable that we raise no question in advance in reference to this matter, but it is necessary that we know what they mean as we go along. With much respect, I am yours truly, His Excellency CHAS. F. ADAMS, United States Minister. WM. L. DAYTON. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. No. 56.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 10, 1861. SIR: Your despatch of August 22, No. 35, has been received. I learn from it that Mr. Thouvenel is unwilling to negotiate for an accession by the United States to the declaration of the congress of Paris concerning the rights of neutrals in maritime war, except on a distinct understanding that it is to have no bearing, directly or indirectly, on the question of the domestic difficulty now existing in our country," and that to render the matter certain Mr. Thouvenel proposes to make a written declaration simultaneously with his execution of the projected convention for that accession. You have sent me a copy of a note to this effect, addressed to you by Mr. Thouvenel, and have also represented to me an official conversation which he has held with you upon the same subject. The declaration which Mr. Thou venel thus proposes to make is in these words: DRAFT OF DECLARATION. "In affixing his signature to the convention concluded on date of this day between France and the United States, the undersigned declares, in execution of the orders of the Emperor, that the government of his Majesty does not intend to undertake by the said convention any engagements of a nature to implicate it, directly or indirectly, in the internal conflict now existing in the United States." My despatch of the 17th day of August last, No. 41, which you must have received some time ago, will already have prepared you to expect my approval of the decision to wait for specific instructions in this new emergency at which you have arrived. The obscurity of the text of the declaration which Mr. Thouvenel submits to us is sufficiently relieved by his verbal explanations. According to your report of the conversation, before referred to, he said that both France and Great Britain had already announced that they would take no part in our domestic controversy, and they thought that a frank and open declaration in advance of the execution of the projected convention might save difficulty and misconception hereafter. He further said, in the way of specification, that the provisions of the convention standing alone might bind England and France to pursue and punish the privateers of the south as pirates; that they are unwilling to do this and had so declared. He said, also, that we could deal with these people as we choose, and they (England and France) could only express their regrets on the score of humanity if we should deal with them as pirates, but that they could not participate in such a course. He added, that although both England and France are anxious to have the adhesion of the United States to the declaration of Paris, yet that they would rather dispense with it altogether than be drawn into our domestic controversy. He insisted somewhat pointedly that we could take no just exception to this outside declaration, to be made simultaneously with the execution of the convention, unless we intended that they (England and France) shall be made parties to our controversy, and that the very fact of your hesitation was an additional reason why they should insist upon making such contemporaneous declaration as they proposed. These remarks of Mr. Thouvenel are certainly distinguished by entire frankness. It shall be my effort to reply to them with moderation and candor. In 1856, France, Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Sardinia and Turkey' being assembled in congress at Paris, with a view to modify the law of nations so as to meliorate the evils of maritime war, adopted and set forth a declaration, which is in the following words: 1st. Privateering is and remains abolished. 2d. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war. 3d. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag. 4th. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective-that is to say, maintained by forces sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy. The States which constituted the congress mutually agreed to submit the declaration to all other nations and invite them to accede to it. It was to be submitted as no special or narrow treaty between particular States for limited periods or special purposes of advantage, or under peculiar circumstances; but, on the contrary, its several articles were, by voluntary acceptance of maritime powers, to constitute a new chapter in the law of nations, and each one of the articles was to be universal and eternal in its application and obligation. France especially invited the United States to accede to these articles. An invitation was equally tendered to all other civilized nations, and the articles have been already adopted by forty-one of the powers thus invited. The United States hesitated, but only for the purpose of making an effort to induce the other parties to enlarge the beneficent scope of the declaration Having failed in that effort, they now, after a delay not unusual in such great international discussions, offer their adhesion to that declaration, pure and simple, in the form, words and manner in which it was originally adopted and accepted by all of the forty-six nations which have become parties to it. France declines to receive that adhesion unless she be allowed to make a special declaration, which would constitute an additional and qualifying article, limiting the obligations of France to the United States to a narrower range than the obligations which the United States must assume towards France and towards every other one of the forty-six sovereigns who are parties to it, and narrower than the mutual obligations of all those parties, including France herself. If we should accede to that condition, it manifestly would not be the declaration of the congress of Paris to which we would be adhering, but a different and special and peculiar treaty between France and the United States only. Even as such a treaty it would be unequal. Assuming that Mr. Thouvenel's reasoning is correct, we should in that case be contracting an obligation, directly or indirectly, to implicate ourselves in any internal conflict that may now be existing or that may hereafter occur in France, while she would be distinctly excused by us from any similar duty towards the United States. I know that France is a friend, and means to be just and equal towards the United States. I must assume, therefore, that she means not to make an exceptional arrangement with us, but to carry out the same arrangement in her interpretation of the obligations of the declaration of the congress of Paris in regard to other powers. Thus carried out, the declaration of Paris would be expounded so as to exclude all internal conflicts in States from the application of the articles of that celebrated declaration. Most of the wars of modern times-perhaps of all times-have been insurrectionary wars,or "internal conflicts." If the position now assumed by France should thus be taken by all the other parties to the declaration, then it would follow that the first article of that instrument, instead of being, in fact, an universal and effectual inhibition of the practice of privateering, would abrogate it only in wars between foreign nations, while it would enjoy universal toleration in civil and social wars. With great deference, I cannot but think that, thus modified, the declaration of the congress of Paris would lose much of the reverence which it has hitherto received from Christian nations. If it were proper for me to pursue the argument further, I might add that sedition, insurrection and treason would find in such a new reading of the declaration of Paris encouragement which would tend to render the most stable and even the most beneficent systems of government insecure. Nor do I know on what grounds it can be contended that practices more destructive to property and life ought to be tolerated in civil or fratricidal wars than are allowed in wars between independent nations. I cannot, indeed, admit that the engagement which France is required to make without the qualifying declaration in question would, directly or indirectly, implicate her in our internal conflicts. But if such should be its effect, I must, in the first place, disclaim any desire for such an intervention on the part of the United States. The whole of this long correspondence has had for one of its objects the purpose of averting any such intervention. If, however, such an intervention would be the result of the unqualified execution of the convention by France, then the fault clearly must be inherent in the declaration of the congress of Paris itself, and it is not a result of anything that the United States have done or proposed. Two motives induced them to tender their adhesion to that declarationfirst, a sincere desire to co-operate with other progressive nations in the melioration of the rigors of maritime war; second, a desire to relieve France from any apprehension of danger to the lives or property of her people from violence to occur in the course of the civil conflict in which we are engaged, by giving her, unasked, all the guarantees in that respect which are contained in the declaration of the congress of Paris. The latter of these two motives is now put to rest, insomuch as France declines the guarantees we offer. Doubtlessly, she is satisfied that they are unnecessary. We have always practiced on the principles of the declaration. We did so long before they were adopted by the congress of Paris, so far as the rights of neutrals or friendly States are concerned. While our relations with France remain as they now are we shall continue the same practice none the less faithfully than if bound to do so by a solemn convention. The other and higher motive will remain unsatisfied, and it will lose none of its force. We shall be ready to accede to the declaration of Paris with every power that will agree to adopt its principles for the government of its relations to us, and which shall be content to accept our adhesion on the same basis upon which all the other parties to it have acceded. We know that France has a high and generous ambition. We shall wait for her to accept hereafter that co-operation on our part in a great reform which she now declines. We shall not doubt that when the present embarrassment which causes her to decline this co-operation shall have been removed, as it soon will be, she will then agree with us to go still further, and abolish the confiscation of property of non-belligerent citizens and subjects in maritime war. You will inform Mr. Thouvenel that the proposed declaration on the part of the Emperor is deemed inadmissible by the President of the United States; and if it shall be still insisted upon, you will then inform him that you are instructed for the present to desist from further negotiation on the subject involved. I am, sir, your obedient servant, WM. L. DAYTON, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, |